Here are the polls I referred to. The link is to Breitbart which is heavily partisan as is the commentary on the polls, but it contains links to the individual polls themselves. It was just easier than tracking down each poll.

If you look at the subtabs of the CNN poll, you can see that what Breitbart breathlessly reported was, in fact, so-called Democratic independents shifting support to Sanders.

If you believe that people that are currently supporting Sanders won't vote for Clinton in the general, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

The sun will rise, the sun will set, I will have lunch, and the election won't come down to so-called independents, or loss of enthusiasm (really, do you remember 2012?) or any of those other factors. It just gives people pointless things to talk about in the meantime.

It is really quite simple. At the too soon to tell moment we have fragmentation. This election will come down to who garners the most enthusiasm and like howard dean and Barack Obama right now only sanders is lighting any fires. Contrasting and most interesting is the lack of enthusiasm on Clintons side. As an independent I can tell you I don't like the Bush/Clinton option. Clintons ethics are damaging and Bush's connection to iraq is problematic. Don't know how other independents feel but the "inevitability" moniker creates a sour choice to most of the independents I know.

Ask yourself this? If both pubs and dems are divided down the middle do you really think enthusiasm will be there for two families that have been creeping around the wings of the Oval Office since the 90's???

Also, I think the pulse of the electorate is still charging toward something newer and different--we have obama to thank for that.

If you look at the subtabs of the CNN poll, you can see that what Breitbart breathlessly reported was, in fact, so-called Democratic independents shifting support to Sanders.

If you believe that people that are currently supporting Sanders won't vote for Clinton in the general, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

The sun will rise, the sun will set, I will have lunch, and the election won't come down to so-called independents, or loss of enthusiasm (really, do you remember 2012?) or any of those other factors. It just gives people pointless things to talk about in the meantime.

Lol. So what WILL it "come down to" then? It's not a loss of enthusiasm it's who HAS the enthusiasm. I think the enthusiasm that Reagan and Obama stirred up was what won it for them. Remember the Reagan democrats? He got dems to come out to the polls for him rather than sit out the election. Now that is enthusiasm. Barak Obama nearly all of the black vote. Now that is enthusiasm. It will be a major factor in the general. I'm not writing with confidence; I just want you to think about it.

"This election will come down to who garners the most enthusiasm and like howard dean and Barack Obama right now only sanders is lighting any fires. "

How did that work for Howard Dean, anyway? Or for McGovern? Or for Ron Paul? Or for [insert name here]?

You do know that Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008, not by "enthusiasm," but, rather, by exploiting the difference between primaries and caucuses (and proportional / winner takes all). In other words, Obama carefully considered the effects of delegates (and the early disqualified Florida race that year)- Clinton won the popular vote. It's weird how "just so" stories can take hold, isn't it?

And the "Reagan" revolution isn't all that. His vote totals reflect, guess what, running against a deeply unpopular incumbent, with a moribund economy (one might call it a malaise, ahem), with a fresh foreign policy disaster before the election (Iran). The so-called "Reagan Democrats" are nothing more than the realignment started by Nixon- you might want to look up his state's right speech in Mississippi. Yes, he continued and solidified the process of winning the south, but (and there is some irony here) also continued the process of losing the West and NE.

The "enthusiasm" angle is invariably kicked around by people who want you to contribute to their campaign with time and money. Yes, it can affect the margins, but so-called enthusiasm is not the cause of a campaign- it is the product of other factors. Put more simply, McGovern was going to get hosed, no matter how enthusiastic his supporters were.

If you believe that people that are currently supporting Sanders won't vote for Clinton in the general, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Of course most will vote for Clinton anyway, but others simply won't vote at all because to a lot of very liberal Democrats Clinton is no better than Bush. They think she's a globalist, corporatist war monger.

That, combined with lower minority turnout (because no matter what either party blathers about diversity, this is White Millionaire vs White Millionaire), will likely result in a few less Democratic votes.

Most swing states were not won by huge margins. A few less votes can make the race considerably tighter.

Let's take 2012. That's was real close, right? So.... there were only four states decided by less than 5 (!) percentage points. Only one (Florida, of course) decided by less than a percentage point. But Florida is so big, that was still a swing of 75,000 votes. Virginia was 150,000 votes. That's a lot to chalk up to people who won't vote at all.

I feel like people have never been through Presidential elections. Do you remember 2008? When Clinton and Obama had such a heated primary, there were a bunch of people that said Obama couldn't win *because Clinton supporters would never rally behind Obama*? Anyone? How did that work out?

And what about the other side? People saying the weak field doesn't give the GOP a chance... and yet, Clinton emerged out of the crud Democratic field in 1992 (look that one up).

You are all wasting your own time. See how the economy is doing next year. See who the GOP nominee is (because, absent some gaffe from Clinton along the lines of "Yes, I really did kill Vince Foster," she is getting the nomination for the Democrats). Then pay attention. It really is all meaningless blather until then. I would have thought that a rudimentary acquaintance with statistics and some of the work being done would have ended the fascination with the hot air political sites... but, alas, it is not to be.

To me this seems beyond simple (albeit politically incorrect)The parties have their usual die hards, and the sway votes, that never really changes

TOKENS are what does it. Obama had even Colon Powell (a die hard Republican) vote for him. It was a skin issue. Simple as that.Same with Hillary. The teaparty wives will lie to their spouses but still vote for the fellow vagina.

Its that simple folks. That tiebreaker is what won Obama, it is what will win Hillary.

On the Democratic side, I think Bernie Sanders is making some progress against Hillary Clinton. He's got her outgunned on enthusiasm. Where this breaks apart is his appeal to minority groups. Black Americans are solidly behind Clinton so far. Pi can argue it's because of her association with Bill and Barack, the "two" black presidents, but regardless of the reasoning Bernie has some work to do in minority communities.

Many pundits believe she starts with as many as 247 electoral votes. That seems a little high, but even if you knock out a couple of states she's still starting with around 220-230. She can afford to lose a couple of swing states, but a Republican has to take the bigger ones.